Want to echo the thanks to Omagad and contributors of this list, the time and effort gone into this, is really appreciated, it's helped point me in the right direction for my first purchase, I hope to contribute as I start learning more about this fascinating hobby.
One question I have is does the Rolex Daytona 116500 really constitute 'First Class NWBIG'? Having gone through the main threads and the photos etc, it's pretty obvious once you know what you're looking for, how to spot a rep.
The subdial printing is probably the biggest tell, it's not solid and a bit 'vague', whereas the gen is sharp and crisp, similar story to the text below the crown. The crown has no depth compared to the gorgeous three dimensional gen, and how it reflects the light. The red 'DAYTONA' is also printed too high (although granted this is harder to see at distance). Also bezel is not the best on the Noob.
I'm pretty confident I could spot at least some of these flaws on a Noob V3 on someone's wrist if they allow me at reading distance without needing a side by side gen.
I understand your point, but I must disagree.
It sounds easy said like that to spot these flaws, but I can assure you that you couldn't spot any of these in real life without looking closely for 20 seconds, and by closely I mean sticking your eye in it, lol.
PLUS; how many people on earth know that? 10? 50? 100? Not more, for sure. So you will virtually never see someone who can tell that. Let me tell you something, I know a guy, who has a lot of money, and had a bad fake Hulk. I mean, really, a cheap one. I've seen it on his wrist several times, I didn't even THINK it was possible that he was wearing a replica.
I've looked at it at least 30 times over a few months, but from 1m~. One time we were at the restaurant and I looked at it more closely, and I was so convinced it was real I didn't see the obvious flaws for like 5 seconds... when I did, I smiled, and he laughed, and he told me "you know it's a replica, right?", and we both laughed.
Basically nobody ever noticed. There is a video of Rober Downey Jr, showing his watches and he has a terrible fake Omega, do you think anyone ever noticed? Yet, everything yells "fake" in his watch.
So just to be clear, First Class isn't about perfection, isn't about Super Reps, but if you got a watch that nobody will suspect is fake, and plus the flaws are things like "the red printing is .1mm too high" or "the crown is .1mm too flat", you're good to go, because people get away with fakes 1000x worse than that without ever being called out.
